


Love In Vain

by Alley_Skywalker



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heartbreak, M/M, Missing Scene, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22182631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/pseuds/Alley_Skywalker
Summary: Romeo comes to tell Mercutio about his impending marriage to Juliet.
Relationships: Juliet Capulet/Romeo Montague, Mercutio/Romeo Montague (one-sided)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32
Collections: Romeo & Juliet / Romeo et Juliette Fanfic Exchange 2019





	Love In Vain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [auclairdusoleil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/auclairdusoleil/gifts).



> Technically not AU, but there is a bit of timeline stretch to allow this scene to fit in between when Juliet's nurse comes to speak with Romeo and Romeo and Juliet's wedding.

Romeo tosses pebbles at his window until Mercutio lets him in. He climbs up to the second story, sure footed as always – no surprise as he has made the climb dozens of times before. This, in itself, is not surprising. What is stranger is that Romeo has come in such a manner in the middle of the day, with the sun high in the sky, instead of in the dead of night, as he usually would. Mercutio stands aside and watches Romeo pace, long strides covering the room – forward and back, and forward again. The sun catches on Romeo’s hair, lighting it like embers, bringing out chestnut streaks from the depth of midnight-dark curls. 

“What is it, Romeo? Tell me already.” The heat makes Mercutio’s head swim a little. He sits on the bed and brings up his knees to his chin. He can tell Romeo is bursting with something, something that makes him glow from within. Mercutio wonders, vaguely, if it has anything to do his disappearance the night before or with the old nurse who had come looking for him earlier that day. He wonders if it has something to do with Rosaline, and his heart aches. 

It’s an old ache, like a long-healed wound that acts up when the weather is bad – dull and tedious, impossible to mask but not so debilitating as to justify lying about all day. It seeps into the hours of his days until he hardly notices it most of the time. It’s simply a part of him – the longing that Romeo creates in his chest, the warmth that spreads over Mercutio and ties his stomach into knots whenever Romeo smiles. He hardly remembers what it had been like without that constant yearning consuming every part of him. 

When had he not been in love with Romeo? 

There must have been a time – when they were children – when Mercutio could throw an arms around Romeo’s shoulders, tackle him to ground, curl up with him on a patch of grass for a nap, and feel nothing but safety and familial affection. But that serenity is only a shadow of the past now, flitting away every time he tries, half-heartedly, to recapture it. 

Romeo sits down on the bed beside him, all nervous energy and bubbling excitement. He giggles happily and falls onto his back, stares up at the celling, a giddy smile curving the corners of his mouth and making his eyes crinkle. 

“For God’s sake man, come out with it!” Mercutio demands, but Romeo’s happiness is infectious, and Mercutio finds himself caught up in it, notes of laughter slipping into his voice. 

“I must tell you something. I shall die if I do not.” 

Mercutio rolls his eyes. “As dramatic as always, sweet Romeo. What is it? Has the fair Rosaline smiled at you pleasantly this morning?” 

Romeo makes a _shoo_ gesture at him and sits up. “Do not speak to me of her. That is all in the past.”

“What?” Mercutio presses a hand to his chest in mock surprise. “Already? But only yesterday you regaled us with your tragic tale of love lost. Or, rather, never found.” 

Romeo smiles at him, openly, good-naturedly. It makes Mercutio want to kiss him so badly that he digs his fingernails into the palm of his hand. There’s a buzzing in his head, and he no longer knows if it is merely the heat. “I have found so much more than I could ever imagine!” 

“When, pray tell?”

“Last night. Oh, how one look can change everything! A single smile! Her hand in yours—Oh, must you laugh?” 

Mercutio laughs so as not to cry. Or curse. Or something even worse than that. “You are in love again? And she returns it?”

“Aye. She does. It is the crux of what I must tell you.”

“Well that is not all so serious.” Heartbreaking, but not serious. Not so lethal as Romeo’s strange appearance may have initially suggested. For a second, Mercutio had feared that Romeo had come to tell him of Tybalt’s challenge, to ask him to be his second. That would have been serious. _Dangerous._ Less painful, though. “Is this all the news you bring? How dull, sweet Romeo. Has the front door offended you in some way that you did not deem it fair enough for even such banal news?”

“Oh, hush for once and let me explain!” Romeo seems torn between exasperation and delight. It is a particular great joy of Mercutio’s life to tease Romeo until he cannot decide whether he wishes to laugh or to burst out with righteous frustration. 

“Go on, go on.”

Romeo’s eyebrows knit together, a small, pouty storm cloud marring his handsome features. “But first, you must promise me something.”

“What?”

“That what I tell you now will stay secret. That you will not tell anyone.” 

“Oh?” Mercutio can feel his eyebrows crawling up to his hairline almost of their own accord. 

“I’m serious.” Romeo does in fact look rather somber, the joy he had been radiating but a minute ago suddenly gone, leaving a void behind that sucks up all the light around them. “No one must know. It is not only my secret and I should not, in all fairness, be telling you this either, but I cannot bear to keep it from you – not you. Not when we have always shared everything in our hearts. Truly, I wish the entire world could know, but as that cannot be just yet, it must be you alone.” 

Mercutio wishes to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, call him a right fool, embrace him, swear that he will keep any confidence, no matter how grave – an entire myriad of contradictory feelings. _All this over some maid,_ he thinks bitterly. “What great secret can there be in you being in love? Anyone may ascertain that in a moment simply by looking at your face and hearing you utter a single sigh.” 

“It is not that I am in love. It’s more complicated than that.” Romeo smacks his arm lightly, the gesture half-annoyance, half-affection. His face is still overshadowed with concern. Mercutio wishes he could kiss it away. “If you would take this seriously… If I came to you and said I killed a man, it would be not as sensitive a secret as this.” 

The mystery makes Mercutio curious, Romeo’s customary dramatics – unconcerned, even if the comparison is disturbing. But he does not wish to hurt Romeo and Romeo’s face is painted with conflict and a yearning for confidence. If Romeo has chosen him as his confidant, then Mercutio means to take pleasure in that small triumph. He puts on a serious expression and keeps his voice even as he speaks. “All levity aside, I promise to keep your secret – whatever it is. You are my dearest friend, Romeo. I would not betray you. Though I make merry at your _oohs_ and _aahs,_ I am, in fact, capable of discretion.” 

“I imagine it will all soon be know, anyway,” Romeo says, the ghost of his former smile flitting over his face. “But until then, no one can know.” He gives Mercutio a meaningful look. “Not even Benvolio.” 

This, perhaps, surprises Mercutio more than it should have. But, somehow, he has not thought that Benvolio might fall under the definition of _no one else._ It has always been an unspoken rule between them that what two know, is known by all three. This, more than anything Romeo has said until now, peeks Mercutio’s concern. “I see. This is rather extraordinary and, to tell you true, does not quite sit well with me.”

“But do you promise?”

Mercutio sighs and surrenders. Has he ever in his life been able to seriously tell Romeo _no_? “I promise.”

The smile returns to Romeo’s face like the sun emerging from among the clouds. He reaches out and takes Mercutio’s hands in his. Romeo’s hands are warm and soft, barely marred by the slight callouses inevitable when one has trained at all with a sword. “The woman I love—her name is Juliet. Juliet Capulet, Lord Capulet’s only daughter and heir. We met at the masquerade last night. It is her nurse who came in search of me this morning, sent to me by Juliet as we had agreed on and arranged last night. I was wish Juliet last night, when I, as you put it, gave you the slip.” 

The buzzing in Mercutio’s head increases, now fueled by a sudden jolt of panic and disbelief. Romeo is staring at him, eyes wide and hopeful and a little afraid. He opens his mouth to say something but can’t get a single word out. His mouth has gone dry and his throat closes up. 

Romeo’s hands on his tighten and fear begins to win over hope in his expression. “Mercutio? Say something.” 

“Good bloody joke.”

Romeo makes a small sound, similar to a groan but more pathetic. “It’s not a joke. I swear to God, this is not a joke.” 

“Are you an idiot?”

“What?”

“Juliet Capulet? Are you mad? Tybalt Capulet will skewer you on his sword like a shish kebab.” 

Romeo squeezes his hands, moves closer so that their legs, are pressed against each other. “That is why no one can know yet.” 

“ _Yet_?” Mercutio fights down the rising panic, controls his tone so it doesn’t rise to embarrassingly high notes. “Will there _ever_ be a good time for anyone to find out that you are trying to bed a Capulet? The Capulet _heir,_ no less?” If he had not feared for Romeo before, even in light of Tybalt’s apparent challenge, Mercutio fears for him now. If only it were that Romeo was not so busy chasing skirts. If only it were that Romeo would let Mercutio hold him, protect him. Love him. 

“No time may be perfect, but how much will our families be able to do once we are married?” 

“Married? What—”

“We are to be wed. Today. Within the hour.” 

Ice spreads through Mercutio’s body like a spell cast by some evil witch – immediate and unrelenting. He feels numb, all his thoughts suddenly scrambled. “What?” he repeats blankly. 

Romeo tells him again. Tells him how he and Juliet Capulet resolved to get married because of their _great love._ Tells him how they are to be wed by Friar Lawrence that very day. Tells him how happy he is and how he is ready to face the consternation of their families if it means love for him and peace for Verona. “Everyone wins,” Romeo says. 

_Everyone but me,_ Mercutio thinks. 

His thoughts fall slowly back into place. He is breathless, suddenly exhausted. The summer heat is suffocating. Ever inch of his body where he and Romeo are touching burns and aches. He blinks and says, rather stupidly, yet with much greater sense and control than he feels himself to have in that moment. “Do you not think it too soon? You have only just met her. Only yesterday you were pining for Rosaline. And there were other girls before for whom you held equal passion. How is it that this one is different?” All his words slip out almost unbidden. Mercutio feels like he is watching himself speak and act from afar. The numbness within him freezes everything – a poisonous and fruitless jealousy. 

“I don’t know how to explain,” Romeo says. “But I just _know_ that this one is different. She understands me – from the very first time we spoke. It was almost like we could read each other’s thoughts. I am not so foolish as to not understand that this is all rather sudden, but it must be so. We do not have the luxury of a proper courtship. But I love and I am loved. I am no scoundrel to compromise a pure maiden. Trust me in this, won’t you?”

What protests and reasons Mercutio might have had die in the face of Romeo’s sincerity, the spark in his eyes. What is there to say in the light of such pure devotion and exaltation? Even if this love is to be but a fancy, but a daydream, it is no less real in the moment. A hasty marriage could lead to much misery later, but Mercutio is not so selfless and far too self-aware to not realize that it is not this that tears him apart from the inside until he cannot breathe. 

Romeo has never worn that expression when speaking about _him._ Romeo has never loved him in this way. Romeo never will. 

“Don’t do this,” Mercutio whispers, and knows it is a hopeless plea. 

Romeo, of course, misunderstands. “Are you not happy for me?”

Mercutio extracts his hands from Romeo’s grasp and gets up from the bed, paces to the window, opens it and leans against the frame. There is no relief to be found outside, neither from the heat nor the tearing, painful emptiness that is suddenly inside him. 

“Mercutio?” Romeo’s voice takes on a tone of concern. Of _tenderness._ He has once again understood nothing. “Please, do not be so concerned on my behalf. I know that this is sudden and the risk is no small trifle.” Romeo stands and walks over to stand beside Mercutio, reaches out to lightly, tentatively touch his shoulder. 

“But I am happy. Happier than I have ever been,” Romeo says. _Happier than you have ever made me,_ Mercutio hears, and the pain turns to poison in his chest. “Share with me in my happiness. It is all I want. We will find a way to weather whatever storm will come. As long as you are at my side and Juliet in my arms, there is nothing I fear and nothing I regret.” 

Mercutio turns and looks into Romeo’s open, honest face, traces the delicate lines of Romeo’s features with his eyes. For the last time, imagines what Romeo’s lips would taste like if he was to kiss them. 

If he had ever believed that love was anything but an evil, a curse sent from heaven to torture the sinners of the world, the last of that belief burns away in an instant. Unsalvageable. Unreconcilable. 

He swallows past the lump in his throat and says, his voice choked and low, “Off with you then to your marriage bed. And I shall, as always, be here when you return. Have I ever failed you in that?”

Romeo smiles, tender and almost relieved. “Never.” He reaches out, cups Mercutio’s face with both hands, presses a feather-light kiss to his forehead and is gone the same way he came before Mercutio can force out a single word more. 

Mercutio closes the window again and leans his forehead against the glass, looking blankly into the street below, long after Romeo has disappeared out of sight. The sucking emptiness in his chest slowly turns into tears, the tears into laughter, the laughter into white hot rage at the pure unfairness of the world. To love so long, so faithfully, so well and to be so cruelly denied. 

And yet one truth remains: whatever else he feels, Mercutio will love Romeo until death comes to claim him as its own.


End file.
